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DON’T MISS!: MERMAID TO ORDER
WHILE tails are optional, marchers
(and strollers) will don seafaring gear for tomorrow’s 30th annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade. This year, New York City’s answer to Mardi Gras is headed by Queen Mermaid Annabella Sciorra and King Neptune, Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling.
“I’m excited as hell!” says Long Island-raised Martling about being royalty for a day. “I’m an old Coney Island fan from way back. Going back to the ’60s, I went to the Steeplechase and the Freak Show, the parachute drop . . .”
The zany parade, which has an old-style carnival and burlesque vibe, begins at 2 p.m. at West 21st Street and Surf Avenue. It heads to West 10th Street and winds over to the Boardwalk, ending West 15th Street at about 5:30 p.m. Details at coneyisland.com
— Brian Niemietz

Paul Martinka

WATCH IT!: HEY, LAAADY
In “The Disorderly Orderly,’’ Frank Tashlin’s 1964 comedy classic, Jerry Lewis plays a hospital employee so empathic that he suffers the patients’ pains. The situation becomes even more complicated with a new admission — his suicidal high school crush (Susan Oliver) whom he tries to win over. Showing Sunday as part of the BAMcinemaFest, it will be preceded at 4 p.m. by “Jerry and Me,’’ a new 38-minute film essay by Iranian-American Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa about her ever-shifting identification with Jerry Lewis. BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn. Info: bam.org
— Lou Lumenick

Courtesy Everett Collection

CHECK IT OUT!: LET’S DO LUNCH
They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But a free show about lunch? Bingo! Opening today is the New York Public Library’s “Lunch Hour NYC,” a giddy smorgasbord of a show about a very New York innovation: quick meals for movers and shakers. Starting about 150 years ago, when Webster defined the term, “Lunch Hour” hits on the culinary highs and lows since. It ranges from oyster and hot dog stands to power lunches and Schrafft’s, the working gal’s best friend, where ice-cream sodas cost a quarter. The history of school lunches is written on cafeteria trays, and a coffee-shop jukebox plays “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” And then there’s Horn & Hardart’s Automat, which dispensed staples like mac ’n’ cheese for a few nickels. The little windows are re-created here, minus the food. Bring your memories — and bring back Schrafft’s! Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street; nypl.org.
— Barbara Hoffman

GO HERE!: WITH A GRAIN OF SALT
The Central Park Zoo’s polar bears may not have liked it, but for most New Yorkers, the warm winter was a gift that keeps giving. Tomorrow from 6 p.m. till midnight, 50 artists will borrow the 150,000 tons of road salt the city didn’t need last winter to make gigantic projection screens and other art installations at Staten Island’s third annual Lumen Festival at the Atlantic Salt Company (516 Richmond Terrace).
“There’s more conceptual and abstract work than narrative work,” says project manager Monica Valenzuela. “The festival engages people in different ways.”
Works include stop-frame animation, sound waves converted to imagery and a virtual “tunnel” that reacts to radioactive waves.
After midnight, the salt-turned-art will return to its plain-old-salt state, and hopefully it won’t be needed next winter, either. The salt is a short free-shuttle ride (or 15-minute walk) from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Details at lumenfest.org
— B.N.

Courtesy of Amanda Morgan

LISTEN UP!: LONE STARS
Jimmie Dale Gilmore marvels at how his walk-on role in “The Big Lebowski” still gets him “more attention than 40 years of playing my own music!” Of course, he’s only half-joking; Gilmore’s crusty wit and disarming Texas twang are well-known to fans of the Flatlanders, the acoustic country-rock group he co-founded in 1972 with Butch Hancock and Joe Ely. They made just one album before launching successful solo careers, but that sealed the legend; they’ve reunited and recorded several times since, and they’re celebrating the release of their long-lost first session, “The Odessa Tapes,” with a tour that brings them to B.B. King’s on Monday. “Rock ’n’ roll is very much in our DNA,” Gilmore says, “but I think we’ve always been experimental and old-fashioned at the same time. Rediscovering these songs has been a lot of fun, so we’re excited to just get out there and play.” 8 p.m. at 237 W. 42nd St.; more info at bbkingblues.com.
— Bill Murphy